


Armored

by SeventhSparrow



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, benkaru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeventhSparrow/pseuds/SeventhSparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hikaru's still dealing with the emotional aftermath of Krall, but Ben's there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armored

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something short and a little cheesy, but I hope you enjoy it.

“If tomatoes are fruit, why we don’t eat tomato pie or put them on ice cream sundaes?” Demora waved a stick of garlic bread in the air as if to underscore the importance of her query. 

She was an endless fountain of innocent questions. Hikaru tended to forget this when he was away in space. Being home, he found a new appreciation for Ben’s steady patience and couldn’t help but laugh at some of the things that came out of Demora’s mouth.

They were seated at the table for for dinner. The air was redolent with garlic and basil, smells that would normally have Hikaru's mouth watering. Tonight, though, Hikaru found himself eyeing the spread like a Klingon Warbird had just decloaked in front of him. Ben had made spaghetti, one of Demora’s favorite foods. She already had tomato sauce on her cheek and Ben had barely set her plate down a minute ago. 

“Well, I can cook you a tomato pie tomorrow if you want,” Ben offered with an indulgent smile for Demora and sly glance in Hikaru’s direction.

“Yay," Demora squealed happily. "Let's use blueberries in it, too." She slurped at her noodles, dropping some on her purple jumpsuit in her eagerness. 

“Don’t even think about it,” Hikaru warned him with a grimace. Ben chuckled to himself as Hikaru took the salad bowl from Ben. Hikaru put a little salad on his plate then took the smallest piece of garlic bread from the bread basket. 

“Tomatoes are fruits because they come from the flowers of plants," Hikaru explained. "Vegetables don’t come from flowers, but instead come from the other parts of a plant, like the roots or leaves. Cucumbers and peppers are fruits, too, but we don’t make pies out of them. They’re much better in salad,” Hikaru said as he added some salad to Demora’s plate. Demora frowned at the new addition to her meal and nudged it away from her spaghetti carefully. 

Ben winked at Hikaru and lifted one of the bottles off the table. “Hey, Dem. Look what your daddy made just for you. Raspberry dressing.” Ben left off the suspicious-sounding “vinaigrette” as he drizzled it over her salad. 

“Yum! Thanks, Daddy!” Evil vegetables doused with what looked like fruit syrup, Demora finally put some in her mouth.

“You’re welcome. Why don’t you pick both a vegetable and a fruit and we can plant them tomorrow?” 

Hikaru smiled as Demora immediately launched into a ranking of her favorite fruits, pointedly neglecting to name any vegetables. He picked at his dinner as he talked with her and Ben, trying hard to eat most of it, but he felt vaguely queasy. The spaghetti tonight was delicious, especially since Ben had used real vegetables from the greenhouse and simmered his own homemade sauce from scratch. It had taken Hikaru a couple years to break Ben away from his reliance on the replicator, but Ben had become great at cooking. Replicator food paled in comparison to a wonderful made-from-scratch meal, but Hikaru hadn’t been able to summon much of an appetite after returning from Krall’s death camp. 

“Hikaru, if you don’t eat more, you’re going to get so skinny that we’ll have to tie a string to you so you don’t get sucked into one of the ventilation shafts on the promenade.” Ben’s tone was playful, but his dark eyes were concerned as he examined Hikaru’s barely touched plate.

Demora suddenly looked genuinely fearful, dropping her fork to grab Hikaru’s sleeve. “Daddy can get pulled into the vents?” 

Her eyes were wide.

Hikaru laughed and covered her hand with his own. “Baby, don’t worry. Papa’s just joking. Nobody can get sucked into the ventilation shafts here. Not even Keenser.”

“Papa, don’t scare me like that,” Demora scolded. She glared at Ben and tucked back into her dinner.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Ben smiled apologetically at her but Hikaru felt a warm hand cover his thigh and squeeze gently. 

Stifling a sigh, Hikaru worked on getting the rest of his dinner down.

~

“Daddy! Help, Daddy!” Demora’s voice was shrill with terror. Hikaru was running through the dark, searching desperately for his baby girl.

Dust and smoke threatened to suffocate Hikaru and he coughed, unable to catch his breath. Desperately wheezing for air, he stumbled deeper into the bowels of the ship, severed electrical wires spitting sparks that stung his face. He tripped over a fragment of detached paneling and fell face down onto the metal deck painfully. Aching everywhere, he groaned and started to push himself up with scraped, bleeding palms. The light flickered ominously over a lump in front of Hikaru and his heart stuttered in his chest. He felt his breath catch and threaten to tear out of his throat in a broken scream. 

A dark shape was curled on the deck within touching distance, lit by the eerie glow of the emergency lighting. 

Ben. Almost unrecognizable, except he was wearing that silly floral shirt Hikaru had brought home for him from Targanti IV, and a familiar platinum band glinted on his gnarled finger. His formerly warm, solid body was shriveled into a dry, lifeless husk that was nothing at all like the gentle, artistic man that Hikaru had given his vows to. 

The edges of Hikaru’s vision blurred into blackness and a dizzying sensation of vertigo rolled over him. There was salt in Hikaru’s mouth, either from the tears that were pouring down his numb face or from where Hikaru was biting his tongue to keep the screams from boiling out of his throat. 

“What did you do to Papa? _You killed him,_ Daddy! He’s dead!”

Suddenly Demora was standing in front of Hikaru, her voice shrill with accusation. Slowly, Hikaru tore his eyes away from the Ben’s body to face his daughter. 

She could only glare at him hatefully with one eye. _One eye, because--_ Hikaru's mind blanked when he realized what he was looking at. It looked like she had been crushed by the wreckage of the fallen ship and somehow managed to pull what was left of herself free. Hikaru felt his sanity splintering as he gazed upon her tiny body, her injuries so grave that Hikaru’s cracked mind could not comprehend how she was standing upright like that with her leg the way it was. That’s when Hikaru finally realized he wasn’t staring at his child, but a specter, some ghoulish thing that was going to flay his very soul for causing the destruction of everything he held precious and sacred in life. 

Ben. Demora. Both dead, killed in the most horrific of manners, and all _his_ fault. 

He deserved this. Hikaru knew this. He managed to pull himself to his bloody knees and lifted his hollow eyes to meet her stare. He kept them open and didn’t flinch as she let loose a shrieking howl and leapt at him. 

~

With a choked gasp, Hikaru jerked awake. His heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest and he was soaked in sweat. His gorge rose and he slapped a hand over his mouth, desperately fighting the urge to be sick. Hikaru squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on keeping dinner where it belonged. After a long moment, he fought it down. He let his trembling hand fall to the bed and focused on his breath, on the simple act of drawing air in and out of his lungs. 

Ben’s slow, soft snores helped ground Hikaru. He was still sound asleep. Ben was such a heavy sleeper that Hikaru generally didn’t have to worry about disturbing him if he woke in the middle of the night, unless Hikaru woke up screaming or thrashing. For a while after Nero, Hikaru had been prone to nightmares about falling and had woken Ben up several times with his terrified yelling. The nightmares had eventually faded away for the most part. Hikaru hoped desperately that his brain hadn’t just cooked up a new recurring theme for a nightly torture show after this whole Krall mess. 

He turned his head and examined Ben in the dim light that filtered into the window from Yorktown’s night setting. Ben’s skin was smooth, his body solid, and his eyelids moved very slightly as he dreamed about something that was hopefully a universe away from the nightmare Hikaru had just suffered through. Hikaru was tempted to shake Ben awake so he could hear Ben’s voice, fuzzy and burred with sleep. He wanted to ask Ben to hold Hikaru so he could be reassured by the warmth of Ben’s arms and his sturdy, broad shoulders. 

Instead, Hikaru eased out of the bed and quietly crept out of the room. The door whooshed closed behind him. A soft lavender glow lit the hallway from a small nightlight they left on for Demora. Hikaru palmed open Demora’s bedroom door and peeked in. There was a nightlight on in here, too, faintly illuminating the strange creatures that Ben had painted on the walls swimming and drifting between planets and stars. Ben had let Demora choose the theme, but she couldn’t decide between space or dolphins. Ben had given her both, filling the walls with sea life and celestial bodies. Hikaru had thought the effect was rather charming in the bright light of Yorktown’s day setting, but after his horrific dream, he found the dark colors and peculiar creatures unsettling and vaguely threatening. 

Demora was curled on her side on her bed with a plush starship tucked under one arm. Hikaru tiptoed over and knelt next to the bed so he could hear her quiet breaths. He gently brushed her baby-soft cheek, envious of her childish ability to sleep so deeply and trustfully. Reassured that she was okay, Hikaru kissed her forehead lightly and eased back out of the room.

The apartment was too quiet in the main living area. He got a cup of hot water from the replicator and searched the kitchen as quietly as he could for his stash of herbal teas. It took a couple minutes of frustration and he managed to shut his finger in a drawer with a soft curse by the time he found it. Finger throbbing, he finally accomplished his mission and had some genuine mint steeping aromatically in the mug. Hikaru stood at the glass paneling that made up the entire wall of one side of their apartment and stared down at the walkways below. He sipped his tea slowly and inhaled the fragrant steam as he watched the people wandering around in the muted lamplight. The apartment was pretty high up, so Hikaru couldn’t make out the species of any individuals, but he tried to distract himself by making up stories about them. He was surprised at the number of people down below considering the chronometer told him it was almost three in the morning. 

He had decided that the man carrying what looked like a briefcase was actually an Orion smuggling exotic alien hamsters for his Vulcan mother-in-law when he saw movement in the reflection on the glass. There was the rustle of moving fabric behind him and a quiet sigh that ticked the hair on the back of Hikaru's neck. Warm arms wrapped around his waist and a chin settled onto his shoulder.

Relieved that Ben was finally with him, Hikaru leaned back into the embrace but felt a little guilty. He had a feeling that Ben was up because of him.

“Did I wake you?” 

Ben squeezed him. “Bed was cold without you.”

“Sorry,” Hikaru said, feeling bad. He reached with his free hand to rub one of Ben’s arms.

“Shhh, don’t be.” Ben rocked him gently and they stared out the window together for a long moment. “This place always makes me think of M.C. Escher,” Ben murmured in his ear. 

“Who?”

“An ancient artist on Earth who made these crazy, surreal images with cities and staircases where you didn’t know what was upside down or right side up.”

Hikaru glanced up at the populated arches and bridges above them. “Sounds about right,” he agreed. “First time I came here, I was walking around dizzy and cross-eyed.”

“Mmm. Demora was afraid to visit her piano teacher in one of the towers because she thought we’d fall into the plaza.”

Hikaru chuckled. “How is she now?”

“She’s fine. Come with us this week and you’ll get to hear Chopsticks, which she mainly likes to play so she can beg for takeout afterwards.”

Hikaru barked out a laugh. “Should I be proud of how quick she is with everything, or worried about how badly she has us wrapped around her little finger?”

“Both. Just wait ten years, then we’ll really have to be worried.”

“Oh, god.”

“Sorry, not trying to give you nightmares,” Ben joked. Hikaru involuntarily stiffened at his words. Ben must have felt it because he released Hikaru’s waist and reached up to turn Hikaru to face him. “Hikaru, what’s wrong?” 

Hikaru looked into Ben’s worried eyes and sighed. “Nothing, Ben. Just had a really awful dream and couldn’t sleep.”

Ben wrapped his arms around Hikaru again and pulled him closer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“God, no. Just do what you’re doing right now.” Hikaru leaned his head against Ben’s shoulder and breathed in his comforting scent. Ben tugged the mug of tea out of Hikaru’s grip and set it aside on the table. He embraced Hikaru and squeezed him tightly. 

Ben pressed a kiss against Hikaru’s temple. “Come back to bed and let me hold you.”

Hikaru let himself be led back to the bedroom.

~

With Hikaru’s mood and the awareness of Demora asleep in the other room, he was quieter than usual. Only the rhythmic rustling of blankets and their heavy breathing revealed what they were really up to. Hikaru was comforted by the warm weight of Ben over him and the damp heat of his skin pressing against what felt like every inch of Hikaru’s body.

“Ben,” he whispered. _“Ben.”_ Ben’s name almost felt like an urgent prayer on his tongue.

“I’m here, Hikaru." Ben laced both of their hands together, holding them above Hikaru's head on the pillow and kissing him. Ben pressed him deeper into the mattress. "I’ve got you, always."

“I know.” Hikaru did, his chest full with the feeling. 

Ben moved over him, in him, made him feel so good and wanted. With Ben loving him the way he did, Hikaru couldn’t help but let a strained, too-loud moan escape when he came. Ben barely took a minute longer before he shuddered against Hikaru with a low groan. Hikaru winced at their noises but Ben laughed quietly into Hikaru’s hair. 

“One-way soundproofing setting,” Ben said with a breathless chuckle before kissing Hikaru’s ear. He moved to shift off Hikaru, but Hikaru pulled one of his arms free and looped it Ben’s waist, not ready for them to be parted yet. Ben took the hint and obligingly nuzzled his throat. 

“Nice,” Hikaru said with a lazy smirk. “Where would we be without the wonders of modern technology?” 

“Fibbing through awkward questions, or giving our kid fodder for a therapist’s couch in ten years,” Ben replied with a laugh.

Hikaru couldn’t help but chuckle with him. Some of the lingering heaviness in his chest lifted. He felt the familiar post-orgasm lethargy start to tug at his eyelids as he stroked the small of Ben's back lazily. 

“Hey, you falling asleep on me?” Ben poked Hikaru’s cheek with his nose.

“Under you,” Hikaru corrected. He felt Ben slip out of him and let him roll to lay against Hikaru’s side. Ben wrapped an arm around his stomach and draped a leg over Hikaru’s thigh. 

“Smartass.” Ben petted Hikaru’s side and trailed his hand down to slowly trace around Hikaru’s hipbone. Despite the light tone, Hikaru could feel Ben’s silent worry.

“I’m okay, Ben,” Hikaru tried to reassure him. It was true. He was feeling more sure about that now than he did earlier in the evening. Hikaru caught Ben’s hand and squeezed it. “Because of you.”

With a soft sigh, Ben laid his face against Hikaru’s shoulder. Hikaru had never told Ben, but Hikaru sometimes thought that if he didn’t have Ben, he would have already been lost to some disaster in space. The shape of Ben’s love was imprinted on his heart -- a charm that kept Hikaru safe through all of the darkest moments and always guided him back home.

Ben and Demora both made him stronger. Having people he loved to come home to fortified his will to survive. Every hug and kiss felt like a sip of some mystical brew from one of Demora’s bedtime stories, one that gave the hero superhuman strength and the ability to magically fly. 

Hikaru tilted his head towards Ben. “Later today, will you and Dem make me peach ice cream?” 

Ben must have been dozing because it took a moment before he replied in a slurred mumble, “Anything for you, babe.” Ben’s voice was sleepy and slow, his lips ticking as they brushed warmly against Hikaru's skin.

Hikaru didn’t need to see Ben’s smile to know it was there. He could feel it. He wore it into his dreams as a shield, and it was as bright and shining as the sun.


End file.
